Elpida touts 'first' 2Gb DDR 2 chip

Volume production next year

Elpida has developed a 2Gb DDR 2 SDRAM chip - the highest capacity part of its kind, it claims. However, don't expect to get hold of one until next year.

The 2Gb part is the company's first 80nm chip, a process that paves the way for DDR 2 clocked at 800MHz and up. It also allows the die to be fitted inside a typical 68-pin memory package, allowing it to be added to standard DIMMs.

The chip draws the same current as Elpida's existing 1Gb DDR 2 device, enabling memory module makers to incorporate the new part without having to increase their products' power requirements.

The chip is also suitable for incorporation onto the new fully-buffered DIMM (FB-DIMM) specification developed by Intel and others for server memory. Indeed, Elpida itself has pipelined 4GB and 8GB DDR 2 memory modules.

Elpida may have produced working 2Gb parts, but volume production is some way off. The memory maker expects to put the chip into mass-production "by the end of this fiscal year", which means by 31 March 2006. Elpida tacitly said it doesn't expect demand for the part to be significant until that point in any case, so it seems unlikely that too many customers will be troubled by the wait.

Elpida will provide pricing details closer to shipping. ®

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